OPERATION RED SPIDER, PART- 4

OPERATION RED SPIDER, PART- 4

By Cobrapost.com - February 3, 2014

The series of investigative reports of Cobrapost codenamed Operation Red Spider I, II, and III have clearly revealed how the country’s large and small private banks and the nation’s most trusted public sector banks are engaging in money laundering practices. While the RBI claims to be taking action against the erring banks and their insurance associates, Cobrapost has continued its investigation.Associate Editor Syed Masroor Hasan has now unearthed more disturbing terrains of the Indian Banking landscape. It is not just the home grown banks that have failed in maintaining their code of ethical banking. Even personnel of foreign banks that India has welcomed to set up shop on its soil are equally guilty of misconduct. Here is yet another report on money laundering practices in foreign banks and this is Operation Red Spider 4.Cobrapost reporter visited HSBC Bank and Standard Chartered Bank with the same proposition as in the previous investigations. Presenting himself as a politician’s frontman, he approaches the bankers and tells them he has a stockpile of black money amounting to crores of rupees in cash to be converted to white. Different bankers laid out different options for the reporter.But by the end of the investigation, we figured that the bankers, in one way or the other, were ready to indulge the reporter in laundering his scam-tainted cash.

Cobrapost, which was founded in 2003 by Aniruddha Bahal, the co-founder of Tehelka, is a critically acclaimed Indian non-profit news website and television production house, predominantly known for investigative journalism. Read More >>